JOAQUIN Phoenix has been Oscar-nominated twice – for Gladiator (2001) and Walk The Line (2006).

JOAQUIN Phoenix has been Oscar-nominated twice – for Gladiator (2001) and Walk The Line (2006).

If that was a conventional Hollywood biopic of singer Johnny Cash, Joaquin’s own personal journey in I’m Still Here is anything but.

His last cinema release in March last year was Two Lovers, a drama so dreary it would make any star want to seek a better life.

I’m Still Here shows how he had supposedly quit acting before this point, at the start of his purported journey towards rapping.

Showing at the Electric Cinema, the film opens with insights into the dilemmas of an actor who will be told where, when and what to say while wearing clothes he hasn’t even chosen – and develops more downsides like off-stage boredom, inquisitive journalists and a million dollars in the bank.

Although it never illicits any sympathy for Phoenix, the ramshackle filming by his brother-in-law actor and co-writer Casey Affleck renders large parts of their story rather tedious.

As an increasingly dishevelled Phoenix begins to resemble Borat’s nude wrestling film directing partner Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian), it’s Ben Stiller’s impersonation of his hairy features on Oscar night which remains more memorable than the reality.

The death of Joaquin’s 23-year-old actor brother River Phoenix in 1993 means you’ll be able to read into the final water scene what you will, but watching a ‘friend’ defecate on his sleeping face is an unpleasant reminder of how celebrity ‘lifestyles’ can be as juvenile as that of any immature student.

Perhaps this film’s finest feature is to answer an age old question: ‘Where do tramps come from?’